AMD launches 40W sexa-core Opteron EE

In a bid to capture as much of the blade market as possible AMD hard launched the Opteron EE 2400 series. This energy-efficient CPU eats up only 40W under AMD’s ACP measurement [PDF download: AMD Average CPU Power introduction document].

The AMD press release claims that the Opteron EE processors come with 31% higher performance-per-watt than the regular quad-core Opterons ? and if you’re competing against somewhat inefficient architecture such as the sexa-core Xeon [Dunnington, based on Core 2 microarchitecture]. This should bring Opteron EE into a prime position for blade systems, clearly targeting web hosting services and similar high-density power-sensitive customers.

The company did not release the clock speed of the processors, which we find somewhat odd, given the previous quad-core Opteron EE processors, 55W ACP processors at 2.1 and 2.3 GHz.

If you wonder what the power consumption of the Opteron EE compared to the regular quad- and sexa-core Opterons and competing Intel Xeons, that is an answer you’ll have to ask a server vendor.

The sad fact is that AMD does not want independent media outlets to test their Opterons outside of pre-approved AMD systems. This makes a stark contrast to Intel, for instance – who will gladly send their own Xeon processors without fears that "inadequate" testers might come up with scores that the company could dislike.